5 ms·

> Montana's unemployment rate was 3.8% in March, down from its 11.9% pandemic peak in April 2020, according to data by the Labor Department. Politicians used t

by a3n 5y ago

> Montana's unemployment rate was 3.8% in March, down from its 11.9% pandemic peak in April 2020, according to data by the Labor Department. Politicians used to brag about those levels being full employment.

creshal 5y ago
OECD defines a "healthy full employment" rate to be 4-6% unemployment, so the labour pool is unhealthily low already.
- s3tz 5y ago
  Is it measured the same way though?
- c2h5oh 5y ago
  Unemployed are defined as "[..] people of working age who are without work, are available for work, and have taken specific steps to find work." The question is how many people exited the workforce, because both unemployment benefits and minimum wage offer payments that just barely allow them not to starve to death. Normally people would be incentivized to find work, because even minimum wage would offer a significant upgrade over unemployment benefits, but since minimum wage is so abysmally low they couldn't have set unemployment benefits much lower or people would have literally starved. The sane solution of increasing minimum wage to incentivize people to find jobs while obvious is not very popular with wealthy political donors.
- jollybean 5y ago
  That 4-6% is 'healthy' definitely does not mean that lower rates are 'unhealthy'.
  - prepend 5y ago
    It means they are not healthy, that is different but probably the same intent.
  - creshal 5y ago
    But it does. You'll never be able to find jobs for literally everyone (mental illnesses, etc.) and want some slack in the labour pool to handle seasonal fluctuations etc. If you're literally scraping the barrel, you need to import more workers, or move jobs out of state, or automate some away etc.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      That's not unhealthy, it's just not as opportunistic as it could be ... and there's a big difference between those things. The neoliberal view would be 'more immigration because you could expand' ergo 'unhealthy/unoptimized state, increase people to make more GDP'. But that's only one view. Given a flat population, it generally actually wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for example to 'let people go' to create more slack for times of economic swings. Very low unemployment can only be characterized as 'unhealthy' from the view of 'maximizing GDP growth' for the most part.
throwaway_kufu 5y ago
> Politicians used to brag about those levels being full employment. That was before they began openly fudging the numbers. Following 2008 they began removing people from the unemployment numbers once their unemployment benefits expired. The unemployment rate was never 5% after 2008 and it’s not 3.8% now, millions and millions of people have been written off by politicians using those fake numbers for their reelection campaigns.
- prepend 5y ago
  > Following 2008 they began removing people from the unemployment numbers once their unemployment benefits expired. The BLS unemployment rate that’s referenced here is the number of people looking for work who can’t find work [0] so it is meant to measure the percent of the labor force that isn’t working. There are six different rates estimated (U1-U6) and I’m not aware of any that stop counting once unemployment benefits run out. There is a specific stat (U1) to estimate those who have been unemployed for long periods. [0] https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm [1] https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-economics/chapter/measuring-unemployment/ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-economics/chapte...
  - throwaway_kufu 5y ago
    See the last section of your link: > Unemployment insurance (UI) programs are administered at the state level and provide assistance to jobless people who are looking for work. By definition those receiving unemployment are looking for work. Once you come off unemployment, you are not automatically considered unemployed and seeking work, instead the burden is on you to prove to the BLS you are actively looking for work, this is called marginally attached to the labor force but the catch all is discouraged workers a subset and nearly anyone unemployed that has run through their benefits and still not employed is nearly always going met this definition and they are not considered part of the labor force. (See your link - Who is not in the labor force? )
    - prepend 5y ago
      This is normally true, but the condition of looking for work was removed with the pandemic unemployment programs, I think because it wasn’t possible to look for work and people needed help. “Proving” to BLS just means answering a question on a survey, so it’s not burdensome compared to what is required to do continue unemployment insurance. So workers who run out of benefit and answer something like “yes, I’d like to work, am looking, and can’t find” will be included in U3. There are other measures for underemployed, or people who gave up working, etc. I think those are U4-U6, described in the second link I posted. I find lots of these arguments are people not understanding the unemployment measures or people arguing with different versions.
imtringued 5y ago
But are they actually full time employees? If yes, then it truly is brag-worthy.
jabroni_salad 5y ago
I live in Iowa and our unemployment rate pre-pandemic was only 0.3%. There were no special generally available assistance programs available, so I do not think COVID Relief is the cause for the present situation, it's just what returning to normal was always going to look like. There is more demand for labor than there are laborers.

by a3n 5y ago

creshal 5y ago

OECD defines a "healthy full employment" rate to be 4-6% unemployment, so the labour pool is unhealthily low already.

s3tz 5y ago
Is it measured the same way though?
c2h5oh 5y ago
Unemployed are defined as "[..] people of working age who are without work, are available for work, and have taken specific steps to find work." The question is how many people exited the workforce, because both unemployment benefits and minimum wage offer payments that just barely allow them not to starve to death. Normally people would be incentivized to find work, because even minimum wage would offer a significant upgrade over unemployment benefits, but since minimum wage is so abysmally low they couldn't have set unemployment benefits much lower or people would have literally starved. The sane solution of increasing minimum wage to incentivize people to find jobs while obvious is not very popular with wealthy political donors.
jollybean 5y ago
That 4-6% is 'healthy' definitely does not mean that lower rates are 'unhealthy'.
- prepend 5y ago
  It means they are not healthy, that is different but probably the same intent.
- creshal 5y ago
  But it does. You'll never be able to find jobs for literally everyone (mental illnesses, etc.) and want some slack in the labour pool to handle seasonal fluctuations etc. If you're literally scraping the barrel, you need to import more workers, or move jobs out of state, or automate some away etc.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    That's not unhealthy, it's just not as opportunistic as it could be ... and there's a big difference between those things. The neoliberal view would be 'more immigration because you could expand' ergo 'unhealthy/unoptimized state, increase people to make more GDP'. But that's only one view. Given a flat population, it generally actually wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for example to 'let people go' to create more slack for times of economic swings. Very low unemployment can only be characterized as 'unhealthy' from the view of 'maximizing GDP growth' for the most part.

throwaway_kufu 5y ago

> Politicians used to brag about those levels being full employment. That was before they began openly fudging the numbers. Following 2008 they began removing people from the unemployment numbers once their unemployment benefits expired. The unemployment rate was never 5% after 2008 and it’s not 3.8% now, millions and millions of people have been written off by politicians using those fake numbers for their reelection campaigns.

prepend 5y ago
> Following 2008 they began removing people from the unemployment numbers once their unemployment benefits expired. The BLS unemployment rate that’s referenced here is the number of people looking for work who can’t find work [0] so it is meant to measure the percent of the labor force that isn’t working. There are six different rates estimated (U1-U6) and I’m not aware of any that stop counting once unemployment benefits run out. There is a specific stat (U1) to estimate those who have been unemployed for long periods. [0] https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm [1] https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-economics/chapter/measuring-unemployment/ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-economics/chapte...
- throwaway_kufu 5y ago
  See the last section of your link: > Unemployment insurance (UI) programs are administered at the state level and provide assistance to jobless people who are looking for work. By definition those receiving unemployment are looking for work. Once you come off unemployment, you are not automatically considered unemployed and seeking work, instead the burden is on you to prove to the BLS you are actively looking for work, this is called marginally attached to the labor force but the catch all is discouraged workers a subset and nearly anyone unemployed that has run through their benefits and still not employed is nearly always going met this definition and they are not considered part of the labor force. (See your link - Who is not in the labor force? )
  - prepend 5y ago
    This is normally true, but the condition of looking for work was removed with the pandemic unemployment programs, I think because it wasn’t possible to look for work and people needed help. “Proving” to BLS just means answering a question on a survey, so it’s not burdensome compared to what is required to do continue unemployment insurance. So workers who run out of benefit and answer something like “yes, I’d like to work, am looking, and can’t find” will be included in U3. There are other measures for underemployed, or people who gave up working, etc. I think those are U4-U6, described in the second link I posted. I find lots of these arguments are people not understanding the unemployment measures or people arguing with different versions.

imtringued 5y ago

But are they actually full time employees? If yes, then it truly is brag-worthy.

jabroni_salad 5y ago

I live in Iowa and our unemployment rate pre-pandemic was only 0.3%. There were no special generally available assistance programs available, so I do not think COVID Relief is the cause for the present situation, it's just what returning to normal was always going to look like. There is more demand for labor than there are laborers.